Last week I bought a bunch of bananas that ripened unbelievably quickly just on the journey home in the car on a warm sunny day. I was in a banana sort of place when I bought them but as the week went on I just didn’t feel like eating bananas, and they sat in the bowl getting blacker and blacker. In the end they were ugly as anything on the outside and brown and mushy on the inside – perfect for baking. I dug up a banana loaf recipe I made ages ago. Here’s the banana loaf fresh and hot out of the oven.

The recipe is orangey as well as bananary, as it includes the juice and zest of two oranges. Just as I always do with banana muffins/banana cake, I added an extra banana to my loaf mix and deliberately didn’t mash the bananas too much so there’d be nice big gooey banana bits throughout. This loaf should really be called banana and orange loaf as the orange smell and taste is very strong – it’s yummy, but if you were expecting banana bread you’d probably be disappointed with its orangeyness. I ate slabs of this at work all week – lovely with a cuppa, more cakey than loafy. The recipe uses half white flour and half wholemeal flour – perhaps it’s the white that contributes to that cakeyness. Anyway, see in this photo – orange peel bits and gooey banana bits.